


Dirty Old Town

by authorialAdventuress



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen, Mobscast
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 7,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authorialAdventuress/pseuds/authorialAdventuress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I met my love by the gas works wall,<br/>Dreamed a dream by the old canal,<br/>I kissed my girl by the factory wall,<br/>Dirty old town,<br/>It's a dirty old town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Entire Yogscast Fandom](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Entire+Yogscast+Fandom).



> Bit of a forewarning: there will be anachronisms in this story, so if that bothers you you might not want to read it. Most of them are stylistic choices, some will be from plain ignorance. I usually do my research, but some things will slip by me. It's set around the 1920s, Prohibition Era. 
> 
> In case anyone is curious, the lyrics in the summary are from the song Dirty Old Town by the Pogues (though the song itself predates them). 
> 
> Happy adventuring!

    You’re sitting at the bar in the Jaffa Café, kicking your feet around under the barstool because you’re too short to reach the floor. You’ve got a clean tie on, and a plate of eggs and toast in front of you, and a newspaper spread out to the corner of the counter. The eggs have no flavor, but you can’t get the ham; meat messes with you. Ma always said that you just had a delicate stomach, sweetie, and not to worry about it, but your father would always reply with  _stop calling the boy delicate, Margaret, the neighbors might start thinking things_ and flip the page of his ever-present newspaper, hiding his face from the world. And of course, no matter what the neighbors thought, the boys at school with their shiny bicycles would still shove your face in the dirt and call you ‘worm’ or scatter the papers in your bookbag across the schoolyard during recess. When you would come home from school in the afternoon with bruises under your eyes, your father would ask you how school was and you would always reply with, “Fine.”

     That was when you turned to books. Mystery novels have always been your favorite; the investigation, the chase, the crime brought to justice. They made you feel, well, it’s stupid, really, but they made your life feel vindicated. They made you feel powerful, for once.

     And now you’ve moved out of the suburbs, out of your paper route, moved away from your father, from the boys with their hard hands and cruel smiles. You’re sitting in a diner with chipping linoleum eating eggs that taste like water. Your Ma still calls, sometimes.

     Your eyes turn back to the paper, where REPORTER WANTED meets you in big black letters. You fail to notice the obscure ‘experience needed’ in tiny print underneath.

_The Owl’s Nest_ newspaper. Reporter. It’s not detective, but it’s something.

     You fold the paper up and stuff it into your interior coat pocket. You pay the bill the waitress tosses in front of you, carefully counting the coins. You don’t have much left over from the rent for your drafty apartment, but the freedom is worth it.

     The street outside is damp and obnoxiously bright. The rain from the night before has flung dead leaves over brick stoops and car roofs, looking like forgotten laundry. The city is awake, and you have to fight the current of people to get back to your apartment.

     When dodging people becomes too much work you throw yourself off the sidewalk and into an alley. This way is faster, anyhow, but you can’t help the  _go ahead and run, worm_ that slides into your head as you move past garbage cans and broken glass. Brick towers to either side of you, broken seldomly by foggy windows. The shadows are deep. You feel like you are underwater.

     Scuffling steps echo down the alley, and you turn to see a tall man striding toward you. His face is dark; morning light is coming from behind him. His shoulders are hunched like he’s expecting something to fall on him.

     He stops right next to you, head jerking up in surprise. His long legs make you feel acutely short. He stares. You tell your body not to fidget.

     “Can I help you?” you ask politely. His eyes are heavy with shadows. A streak of blonde flashes in his hair; it seems to be the most cheery part about him.

     “Jesus Christ, you’re just a kid,” he whispers.

     “Pardon?” Years of trained civility prevent you from asking exactly what he means. His eyes are fixed on you; you can’t help but feel like you’re being dissected. It is now that you realize he has something small in his closed hand.

     “Is this… is this a mugging?” you ask. Your voice squeaks and your heart begins throwing itself against your ribcage. You tell your body to calm down, but somewhere the connection is lost. Your hands shake.

     “What?” The man’s eyes refocus; he comes back from wherever he was.

     “Am I being mugged?” Your hands grip the strap of your messenger bag. Maybe if you can get one of your pens you can… what, draw smiley faces on him as he stabs you?  _Boy, you are stupid. Gonna get killed in the city, didn’t even make it a week._

     “God, no, Jesus… just, just stay out of trouble, okay?” He pivots, begins sprinting back up the alley. You stand there, hands on your bag, head spinning so fast that you can’t even think.

     “Okay!” you call, stupidly, before he blurs back into the river of bodies on the street.

     Your Ma did always tell you the city was a strange place.


	2. Chapter 2

_Screw that, screw that all the way to hell,_ you think as you take two steps per leg so you can reach your apartment. The plan: get in, grab, as much as you can, get out. You don’t know when they’re coming, but you know they are.  _Just a fucking kid, Christ._

     You finally reach your door and your hands skitter around the lock frustratingly. You have the key, you see the lock, you can’t seem to make the connection.  _I had the fucking blade out and everything. He was just standing there, practically waiting for me. Like a fucking present._  You drop the keys. You consider giving up. They’re going to find you, anyway. Sipsco doesn’t just leave a job unfinished. You would know.

     “No loose ends,” Sjin had said, “Boss’ orders. He wants that witness gone.” You hadn’t quite understood.

     “But he hasn’t reported it yet. He must have forgotten it, or maybe he never saw you dump the body in the first place. What if you’ve got the wrong guy?” You aren’t big on kill orders; you haven’t had to do one yet, and you don’t have Sjin’s…  _affinity_ for carnage.

     “No. Loose. Ends,” Sjin had hissed, jabbing you in the shoulder.

     You suppose that will apply to you now, too.

     Your forehead thunks against the doorframe. Your mind screams,  _he was just a fucking kid!_  over and over at you, either accusing you or forgiving you, you aren’t sure. It’s probably both.

     You grab the keys from the floor, somehow make them fit the lock. Your body has stopped its twitching, and you aren’t sure what that means.

     You don’t make it two steps inside before Sjin greets you with a punch, making the world in front of you go black.


	3. Chapter 3

     “What’re you doing here, kid?” A tall woman in a dark suit props her legs on the desk in front of you and lights a cigarette. Even from two yards away, she manages to blow smoke in your face.

     You cough lightly.  _It’s just nerves_ , you tell yourself.

     “I want a job.” Your voice wavers.  _Stupid_ , you tell yourself. One side of her mouth picks up; you’re not sure if it’s a twitch or an actual smile. You’ve heard she doesn’t smile.

     “You got any experience being a reporter?”

     “Well, I used to run the newspaper route in my hometown and-”

     “You don’t say!” she exclaims, her eyes wide. You think she’s mocking you. “An actual newspaper route? Well I’ll be.” She hacks a little smoke in an approximation of a laugh.

     “I know it’s not a lot,” you say with a mouth numb from apologies ( _stupid_ , you remind yourself), “But I think I can do it.” She considers you with a hard eye.

     “You know who I am?” she asks. She blows smoke out through her teeth. You cough again.

     “Lomadia Yogs, editor-in-chief of  _The Owl’s Nest_ newspaper.”

     “So you know what I do?” You actually don’t. You were told to come to this interview fifteen minutes early, to wear a new suit, to shine your shoes, to bring your resume, but you were not told whatever the heck it is this woman does.

     “Let me tell you. I do a lot of things, Nilesy. And I need a lot of people to help me make all these things happen. You want to be one of these people, and you don’t even know what these things are?” She loses you around the second sentence, but you nod your head just like you’ve been taught when a superior asks you a question, and she laughs a little more smoke from her lungs.

     “Well. You’re gonna be my new assistant. You said you wanted a job, this is what you get.”

     It’s not reporter, but it’s something. You accept.

     “You’re in the lion’s den now, kid,” she says, teeth exposed in bravado, and blows more smoke in your face. You cough.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is violence in this chapter.

     You come to in a pool of light that spills down the arms of a dark wood chair and glitters off of sharply sterile metal instruments and the buckles that bind you. You have a headache that makes every shadow seem menacing.

     Sjin giggles in one of the dark corners of the room. “Welcome back to the world, sleeping beauty,” he croons. You want to growl but say nothing instead; you have enough experience to know that silence unnerves people more than any words could. Sjin stalks to the left arm of the chair, strokes it. “It’s mahogany, do you like it?” His grin is familiarly mischievous.

     Sjin pouts. “A conversation can’t be one-sided, Rythian.” He pauses, presses a finger to his cheek. “Or, we could get right to the fun part.” His fingers drift toward the plastic tray holding his delicate metal ‘toys’- an action that you don’t miss.

     “What do you want, Sjin?” your voice is raw.

     “Tut-tut. Obviously getting knocked in the head did nothing for your manners.” He pauses, waiting for your reply. He seems dramatically disappointed when none comes. “Sips needs you to keep quiet. Can’t let all of our dirty little secrets out, can we?” His smile is pointy and uncomfortable. “And you hurt our feelings when you left. What else did you expect would happen?” He picks up a switchblade from the tray, inspects it. In one swift move, he slices it into your cheek. You cry out; the entire left side of your face burns from the blade.

     “Oh, calm down,” he frowns, “it’s not that bad.”

     It is that bad.

     Near the end of it, you can see sticky, dark blood soaking into your shirt. You can feel criss-cross patterns burning into the places where metal met skin and parted it neatly. Your teeth hurt from gritting them together and your throat is sore from screaming, but it doesn’t outweigh the enveloping pain of your skin. Sjin is cleaning the switchblade on your shirt. You are afraid you might pass out. You don’t want to miss your own death.

     “You’re getting blood on the mahogany,” Sjin says, his voice dismayed. Your head lolls; half drunk on your own pain, half dead from blood loss. Sjin cleans the switchblade meticulously, almost as if in disregard to your suffering. You want to throttle him, or maybe cry. You haven’t decided if it’s past that point yet.

     “We were friends, once,” he says wistfully, “We were, weren’t we?” He pauses. You can see the past in his eyes. “Oh, yes. We were friends. You gave this to me.” He balances the switchblade on his palm, almost an offering. “For my birthday.” Your face tries to push your lips together to spit out bloody drool, but it just lands in your lap. You can’t manage much else. Sjin giggles, perches on the right arm of the chair. “How deliciously morbid for me to kill you with it,” he murmurs, voice dark. His face is all angles, with no distinction. A smudgy hand reaches up to place cold steel against your throat. You try to swallow but can’t seem to do it; you guess you’re going to die with blood in your mouth.

     “But I won’t.” He flicks the switchblade closed in a rapid movement and spins off the chair to somewhere behind you. You aren’t sure what’s going on anymore. You are just very, very tired.

     Sjin’s voice is a tickling whisper in your ear when he speaks again, “We  _were_  friends, once.” Something cold hits your temple heavily, and then, blessedly, darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long since my last chapter; I had a wicked writer's block.

     You wake up slowly. And groggily. And just about every bad thing that you can remember of the past twenty-four hours hits you right in the face all over again, literally.

     Your fingers start mapping your new face from the chin. Each touch ignites pain, but the ends of your skin meet under sutures, and your brain fights the confusion for a moment.

     You jump when a voice echoes in the room. You hadn’t noticed the slim strip of redhead rinsing medical equipment to the right of you. “I cleaned your cuts, and closed them. Nasty bit of work, but at least you’ll live.” Different room. Different voice. Different chair, not restrained. Good, so far. Still, you can’t fight the urge to reach your hand down to your pocketknife. Then a familiar sound, a safety being flicked off, clicks out in the darkness. You search the shadows, but your eyes can’t decide where the danger is.  
“Wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” The girl nods to your hand creeping into your pocket. “Teep doesn’t like strangers, especially not suspicious ones. She meets your eyes for the first time; hers are sharp sunlight glinting off of water. Your hand retreats.

     “Do you have a mirror?” you ask. You figure it’ll be better to see it now than to catch your reflection where you don’t want it.

     “I...” she hesitates, looks down at her folded hands, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Her voice is firm, almost as if to cover up the pity behind it. You nod; what use is a pretty face, anyway?

     The silence becomes heavy. Somewhere in the darkness something shifts, but you can’t tell what it is. You aren’t sure if the quiet or the pity will crush you first. You stand up, try and wipe dried blood from your shirt. “Well, thanks,” you say, “But it’s time I got going.” The girl stands up with you. Her eyes are a little wild.

     “Wait, aren’t you in danger?” You turn to look for an exit, but everything is shadows.

     “That would be classified under ‘none of your damn business’.” Her face finds its way back into your line of vision. Her forehead is creased and her right cheek has a grease smudge.

     “Well, what are you going to do?” You don’t say revenge, but you think she can see it in the sharp edges of your eyes. Your face didn’t fucking do this to itself. Her eyes widen a little. It’s like she can smell adventure. “Let me help.”

     You can feel your face stiffen into stern lines as you look at her. “No.”

     “Please? Teep never lets me have fun, I just want to go _do_ something!”

     “Take up knitting. It’s rather therapeutic.” She huffs in exasperation as you begin to walk toward what you assume is the way out.

     “I meant out there! What use is honing these absolutely aces science skills if I can never use them?”

     “You just did, on me. Well done, now get lost.” You can practically hear her cross her arms as you reach the door.

     “I just want to have a life!” she snaps. You open the door and see streetlamps casting shadows. Night. Excellent.

     You turn to look at her one more time. Her eyes are flashing gold, her hair solid fire in the light from the door. She doesn’t belong in your world.

     “You won’t have one much longer if you come with me.” You flip the door open and stroll out into the darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

Fresh sunlight begins draining into the yard through slatted fence posts, making it slice into shards on the dew-sparkling grass. The world around you smells like wet earth and sweet hay and dog, all three of which you think you are currently touching. You knew the workers here kept a hay bed for the stray dog that mills around in the late hours of the afternoon. You didn’t want to return to your apartment last night. You’re not falling for that trick again.

You feel for the crumbled bills in your pocket- enough to get an apple and some toast, maybe. Not enough to fill a stomach. It growls disapprovingly. Where would you even get food anyway? Can’t go out in public like this. Your fingers trace the map of lines along your jaw. Nothing to be done, you guess.

You eye the garbage cans to your right, but dismiss the idea. You still have your pride, surprisingly.

Your brain is running through the safe houses you might be able to use when you hear a disgruntled, “Hey!” come from the direction of the workshop, and then your legs neatly hop you over the fence and are moving you through the wakening city. Hiding will be harder in the daylight.

You don’t have a safe place to go. You’re wandering around the railway, where daisies pop their heads between the rusted metal slats in bright defiance, when another, “Hey!” calls out to you, and you prepare to run. Your legs splutter confusedly when a, “Wait up!” comes right after it. You turn, and see a flame of hair bounding toward you. Christ, why.

“Hey,” she pants when her leaps halt in front of you.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help you,” she replies. Not this again.

“Why the fuck would you want to help me? You’re just a kid, anyway.”

“Yeah, a kid who sewed your face back into one piece!” She says it like an accusation. That stings somewhere in the amorphous area of your rib cage, and she whispers a “sorry” like a sullen child.

“Look, the things that I do, it’s not some magical traipse through the land of sugar and good wishes. It’s dangerous.”

“I can handle danger.” She says it so evenly that it throws you. You step into her space, jab a finger at her face.

“You will die.” Something growls in the shadows of the railcars to the right of you; you didn’t even notice her henchman get the drop on you. Girl comes prepared.

“It’s okay, Teep,” she whispers. Determination makes her gaze a solid thing. You feel flustered; and you, Rythian Enderborn, are certainly not a flustered kind of man.

“Why the hell do you want to work with me anyway?” She studies you. Your face feels hot; with scarring or angry confusion, you aren’t sure.

“Is it so hard to believe someone sees something of worth in you?” You look away from her sharp eyes; the ground has an easier gaze to handle. You run a hand down your face, then regret it when it tugs at your sutures. The pain clears your head a little, and you force your eyes to be as sharp as hers when you look up at her again.

“If you’re going to work with me, you’re going to need some protection,” you say sternly. She half-laughs, her teeth bared in a grin. The shadows shift and surge forward in a mass. Your eyes finally decide they are a man. A very large man with a very large shotgun slung over his shoulder.

“That’s what Teep’s for.” The large man remains silent. His shotgun kicks against his back now and again with his breathing. Your eyes cannot seem to register him all at once. “Oh, and uh… sorry for pulling the heat on you earlier,” she gestures at the mass of person next to her with a smirk, “Can never be too safe nowadays.”


	7. Chapter 7

You get a call from Lomadia early on a sunny Saturday morning, giving you an address and nothing more. You would be annoyed if she didn’t intimidate you so much.

You end up arriving sometime around noon at one of the cookie-cutter houses in the niche of the suburbs that linger at the fringes of the city. Lomadia greets you at the door with a freshly lit cigarette and a net, which she tosses into your fumbling hands. “Pool’s out back,” she tells you.

You pretend not to be aggravated as you fish dead leaves and cigarette butts out of the pool, but the jerkiness of your arms and frigid stiffness of your shoulders must reveal the way your face lies, because Lomadia sweeps through the double French doors to stand beside you as you stab the net into the water.

She sips something dark and sweet-smelling. “So how’s the new assistant job going?” she asks innocently.

“Am I an assistant?” you ask, yanking the net through the water, “Because this doesn’t feel like an assistant job to me.” She taps some ash into the pool.

“Missed some,” she replies, taking another sip. You turn to give her an incredulous look; the pinnacle of your anger has made you brave.

“What am I even doing here? What is the point in calling me over to do work if you’re just going to sabotage me?” You throw down the net at her feet. You want her to leap back in surprise, maybe spill some of her drink on herself, but she doesn’t. Her eyebrow arches in amusement, spite to your anger.

“You didn’t even want this job, right? What are you doing here?” Your head drops back. From this angle, you can see the branches swaying above you, green leaves becoming gold and red. Their translucent skin is illuminated by the sun. They make the trees look like parade floats.

“I needed a job. I want to be a reporter.”

“No, you don’t. Why are you here?” Her voice is infuriatingly calm. Your hands scrub down your face.

“I don’t know. Why am I here, Ms. Yogs?” Sunlight blinks through your glasses, blinding you.

“First of all, it’s Lomadia,” she replies, sipping loudly, “Secondly, because you, Nilesy, are a sheep.” At this you look at her. “What did I tell you on your first day?” You mind casts a line back, catches something.

“I’m in the lion’s den?”

“And what do lions do to sheep?”

“…eat them?” She nods, taps some more ash from her cigarette.

“Why are you here?” You think you’re catching on.

“To learn how to not get eaten.” The corner of her mouth curls, and she pats your cheek twice, roughly.

“We’ll make a lion of you yet.” She turns and begins sauntering back into the house. Your eyes drift down to the net.

“Does that mean I can stop cleaning the pool?” you call after her. She throws her words back over her shoulder.

“What do you think?”

With a sigh you pick up the net and continue fishing dead leaves and cigarette butts out of the pool.


	8. Chapter 8

The yellow-mouthed daisy flops into your vision with each step, dusting your nose with pollen. You’d take it out of your hat, but every time you do Teep just replaces it. Even now he follows close behind you with another daisy in hand, waving it warningly each time you reach up to scratch your head. Zoey’s encouraging laughter doesn’t help.

She’d given you her name along with an open, spat-in palm, expecting you to shake it. When you declined the childish ritual, she’d given you a purple scarf instead. You’d wrapped it over your mouth immediately; she hadn’t needed to explain.

“How did you find me, anyway?”

“Teep told me.” You give a wary glance back to the stubborn gun-toting bastard behind you.

“You talk to that thing?” He whacks you on the back of the head, skewing your hat. You yelp an, “Ow!” and readjust the hat, half considering just taking the damn thing off.

“Okay, fair enough, sorry,” you tell him. He just gives you a nod.

“Teep doesn’t talk,” she responds, eyes on the rail in front of her.

“Why not?”

“His tongue was cut out. He’s pretty good-natured about it, actually.” She throws a smile over her shoulder at Teep, who beams back. It would be domestic if she wasn’t talking about mutilation.

“What, who? Why?” You have so many questions, and all of them try to come out at once. She shrugs.

“He won’t tell me. I just found him one night out on the street by the docks. With the blood down his mouth like that, I thought he’d eaten a cat or something. But he turned out to be a normal guy with his tongue cut out.”

“Jesus, do you take in all the strays?” Teep’s hand pops against the back of your head again. You scowl at him.

“I think he thinks if he doesn’t tell me who did it, he can keep me out of trouble.” She gives you a half-smile. “That’s why he doesn’t like you.” You reconsider Teep, with his grin as broad as his shoulders, daisy popping out of his fist.

“He’s smart.” Teep claps you on the shoulder, offers you another daisy. You accept.


	9. Chapter 9

You’re snooping like you do every night, sniffing out a story. You’re hoping Lomadia will see something more in you than a pool boy if you can find something juicy enough. Your ace detective skills are leading you right to the Honeydew Inc. compound which, at this time of night (or any time of day, really), doesn’t seem like the brightest idea. But, darn it, you’re going to be a reporter if it kills you. Which, you think, it might actually do.

You startle and freeze like a rabbit when you hear some shuffling and muffled voices and (stupid, you are really stupid, way to detect things, stupid) duck into the nearest alley like an ace professional reporter, yeah. Which, you realize, is not the best idea, because something heavy is heading your way.

The Honeydew thugs thunk by on thick feet, carrying boxes of wrinkled papers somewhere beyond the alley. The marbled bees on their cufflinks glint. They don’t even see you when you slip out of the darkness and follow them. Aces. You’re practically a professional, really.

You fumble with your handheld camera and crouch down as they turn the corner into the warehouse lot. The voices pick up; some men are talking about a poker game in the cellar. Somewhere in the lot, someone is playing craps.

“Hey, bums, get a move on! These need to disappear tonight.” You know that voice. That voice has shouted at you from balconies as you fished the cigarette butts out of her pool-

“Lomadia?” you exclaim. Your voice squeaks. You suddenly realize you are exposed, standing in the gate to the lot, surrounded by men that look like they are three times your weight and five times scarier (with about half the teeth). Lomadia’s eyes are round like soup spoons, but they immediately begin to glitter like knives.

“Nilesy,” she responds, her voice a soft hum in her throat. It is the softest she has ever spoken. “What are you doing here?” You resist the urge to cough; she isn’t even smoking.

“I was… I,” you point behind you, as if some reason would magically appear there (stupid, stupid kid, now you’re going to get yourself killed). “Just.” Your voice squeaks again.

She waits for your response like a wildcat waits to pounce.

“What are you doing here?” you finally stutter out. Brilliant idea, stupid.

You don’t realize she is laughing until some of the men around her laugh too. It sounds so mangled and broken- like something a car engine would sputter before finally giving up. You don’t think you get the joke.

“C’mere,” she says. She surveys you with her hard eye before grabbing the cap off your head and brushing at it elegantly. You want to snatch it back from her, as if that would offer some form of minimal protection. “I’ll bet,” she says, plucking pills from its edges, “you were looking for a story.” She spreads her arms out. “How about this one?”

“What is the story here?” you ask, then lower your voice, “Are you in danger?” She gives her car engine rumble again and pats the cap into place on your head.

“You’re sweet, kid, but you’ve got a lot to learn.” Well, it was a longshot, at best. A person like Lomadia is usually the source of the danger.

The thugs begin pouring some liquid over the stacks of boxes. It has a heady, unctuous scent that blankets over everything else. It makes you want to sneeze. 

“What’s that?” you ask.

“Lighter fluid.”

“No, I mean that.”

“Evidence,” she responds evenly. Her face looks clean of crime. She gives you another hard eye, one that says you can put it together, stupid.

“You’re working for Honeydew?” Your voice, miraculously, doesn’t squeak. You guess you kind of expected it. She considers your question as she pulls out a long, slim cigarette.

“More like… we have an agreement.”

“Why?” She gives a world-weary sigh, flicks a match to life and lights her cigarette. She watches as the match burns almost down to her fingers, her face enraptured, with a twinge of something that could be sadness.

“Sometimes there are things in life you just gotta protect, even if it kills you.” She tosses the match onto the pile with a neat snap of her fingers. The evidence ignites. Whatever story was there, it’s gone now.

It is only now, with the lot illuminated, that you can see a long, thin bearded man with dark eyes leaning against the warehouse’s brick wall. You know this man, too, though only peripherally. His face has been in papers: lean, with slicked brown hair and always a button-down vest. Xephos. A wanted man.

This is where you realize you are in way over your head, stupid, and the gravel churns beneath your feet as you sprint away.

If you had stayed, you would have heard swift steps pursue you, and heard Lomadia’s voice, wistfully forgiving, say, “Leave it. He’s just a kid.” And the only sound after that would be the evidence becoming ashes and the quiet snick of a switchblade being closed as Xephos returned to his nonchalant lean against the warehouse wall.


	10. Chapter 10

You’re at The Smiling Cat with Xephos and Honeydew, where the music is loud and the air hot with bodies all pushing between each other, and the amber liquid in your glass burns through your veins enough to make you wonder how it doesn’t melt the ice. Freshly smuggled, surreptitiously stored. Honeydew has his stubby fingers in all the good places.

Xephos slicks the rest of his drink down his throat. He doesn’t even flinch when the concoction hits his stomach. You admire that about him. You don’t realize you are staring until he scrabbles a self-conscious hand behind his head.

“Get him another drink, will ya, Honey?” you ask, sweet-as-you-like.

“Who’s the henchman in this relationship again?” he grumbles, but turns and flicks two fingers towards your table, and the barman rummages behind his counter to produce another.

Your group is quiet tonight. There might be cops here in this speakeasy, but all the wrong ones are out patrolling the streets for Honeydew boys. Sipsco has been leaving bodies with the Honeydew mark. Crafty in one way, stupid in another. It won’t be long before Honeydew decides enough is enough.

Honeydew stands up, and you blink. Is enough.

“Where’re you going?” Xephos mutters into his glass.

“I’ve gotta piss, if you need to know,” he grouches back, “Didn’t realize such information was so sought after.”

“Jesus Christ, can’t a man ask a simple question without getting barked at?” Their words would be harsh to any outsider, but you’ve seen their game before. You don’t miss the way the edges of their mouths quirk up before Honeydew totters off to the bathroom.

“My, my. Testy tonight, aren’t we?” you ask with a flash of teeth. Xephos grunts in return. For him, it’s practically a monologue.

The band begins playing something soft and sweet, and you hear above the rustling of people I met my love by the gas works wall, dreamed a dream by the old canal and your fingers tap into the wood of the table, keeping up with the slow sadness of the fiddle. The blood in your veins is hot, and your head is pleasantly bobbing in a place where there is only warm liquid indifference, which is why, you think, your words are so blunt.

“Do you ever miss it?” you ask, without meaning to. His eyes turn to you, dark like the streets after the rain.

“What, Ireland?” His accent makes loops of the syllables, and you love it. You want to smile at him, stupid with happiness, but some small part of your brain rebels, telling you now is not the time for smiles, or stupidity.

“Yeah,” you say instead. His head swivels to watch the band playing over his shoulder, beyond the clustered people.

“Nah,” he finally says, “It was a dirty old town.”

“So’s this one,” you point out, and you both smirk at each other with bright eyes. “C’mon,” you grab his hand and stand up, and somehow he follows you of his own free will, “I’m ready for another drink.”

So you’re at the bar secretly laughing with each other with your eyes when Honeydew comes back from the bathroom, his squat feet stuttering over the floorboards.

“Quit flirting, there’s a situation,” he huffs. Xephos looks like he’s about to protest before you cut in.

“What’s going on?” Honeydew looks up at you and somehow looks down on you at the same time.

“That’s not your problem. You need to get out before the shit hits the fan. Which it will do. Soon.”

“I’m not about to back away from anything,” you say, baring your teeth at him in a smile, “I bet it’ll make a fantastic story.”

“The story won’t fucking matter if you can’t tell it,” he growls. You can see in the way his shoulders are set that he is genuinely agitated, maybe even enraged. You back off. He isn’t just playing with you. He assesses you, then turns to Xephos. “Get her home. I’m going back to the factory. Use the lot entrance. Don’t get seen.” He jabs a finger at him, and then at you, then rushes away on his stocky legs.

Xephos doesn’t even look at you before grabbing your hand and yanking you out the back exit onto a night-sharpened street. He drags you past several puddles flashing with streetlights and a couple of weary-looking doorways until you shake his grip on you and begin rummaging in your coat pocket for your cigarettes.

“Jesus, the goal was to not get seen, not act like a crazy fucking lunatic,” you say, cocking your cigarette in the corner of your mouth. He cups his warm hands around yours as you light it. This is his form of apology. You accept it with a puff of smoke.

“We need to keep moving. He didn’t say if the streets are safe or not, and I don’t want to take any chances.” His eyes cut at you, but then he sees people across the street and hides his hands in his pockets, as if that will make him less suspicious.

“Yeah, well, the streets are never safe for you,” you mutter as you begin to lead back down the street. His hand slips into yours, almost gentle. You know it’s a tactic, but that doesn’t make it hurt your heart any less.

You walk in a stillness; most of the city is sleeping. Except, apparently, for one man wearing a dark blue suit and a shiny black cap stiffly walking toward you…

You grab Xephos by the collar and pull him against you so smoothly that it could have been a calculated move. His body moves like liquid against yours for a single moment before you yank his head down and meet his lips roughly. He may or may not have gasped; your brain is processing so much information at this point that you aren’t sure. You know your cigarette skitters against the cement when you drop it.

You can taste the accent on his tongue. He thinks he takes control by resting his arms on the wall on either side of your head, but you both know who’s really running this game. You aren’t a thing that can be captured.

You release him when you hear the cop’s footsteps pass around the corner. You breathe in and out carefully as Xephos peels his face away from yours. You think he might be smiling.

“Did you just get fresh with me?” You can’t decipher his voice; it isn’t in either range of the only two moods he seems to have, which are somber and more somber.

“I think that was a little more than ‘fresh’,” you retort a bit too sharply. You aren’t sure how to react to this side of him. You’re off your guard, and that is one thing you are never off.

Neither of you steps out of the other’s space. It feels like you’re bargaining for territory.

“I’ve killed people,” he states so simply, so easily. His eyes are open.

“Why do you think I like you so much?” His lips crank up more than you’ve ever seen them; you think it might be a grin. You can’t help but react.

The kiss is slower this time, but that doesn’t make it hurt your heart any less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: this is from Lomadia's POV, in case it wasn't clear.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there's a little more violence in this chapter. Not as gruesome, but still.

Lalna meets you personally at the lot entrance when you finally make it to the warehouse. His gray lab gloves leave bloody finger smudges on the door handle and his face is a little moony. He reminds you of this cat you once saw at the docks that snapped a rat’s neck in one jerk. You think maybe he caught an intruder. Or a rat. Either way, the lad scares you, a little.

“Honeydew’s in the loft,” he says with a manic grin, “Wants you there, pronto.” He elongates the word to five syllables. You slink by him and up the stairs to the loft, feeling his glazed eyes twist into your back like thorns.

Honeydew has a visitor, who is tied to a chair in the center of the room by thick, knotted rope. He is performing a miraculous representation of an ellipsis, with his mouth more straight than a blade and his eyes half-sunk in quasi-relaxation. He’s got morbid patterns cut in the flesh of his face and a few Lalna-shaped wounds adorning his arms and shoulders. He looks like a man who has been in this type of situation often.

“Some layabouts caught him sneaking in through the window. Lalna had him tied up here for questioning. This is probably a load of bunk. We’ve not got the time for every vagabond who comes to snuffle through the trash.” Honeydew’s voice is sharp, but you know he wouldn’t make you come here unless it was important.

“But?” you ask him. He sighs heavily and tosses more words at you.

“But on the chance he is Sipsco we need to interrogate him about this body-dropping business.” You nod at him once and approach the chair.

“What’s your business here?” you ask him. His eyes meet yours without any malice, and that’s when you know this one will not break easy.

“To see the warehouse.”

“The warehouse is closed.” You gesture around you. His eyes slide away from you, which digs at your pride. You feel a tiny spire of rage spike in your pulse, stamped with the words, how dare he.

“That is unfortunate,” he responds. You decide to try a different tactic.

“What’s your name?” you ask, innocent as you can manage.

“Rythian.” You hide your scoff.

“You give your name freely but not your intent?”

“My business is not your business.”

“If it’s in my fucking factory it becomes my business,” Honeydew grumbles behind you.

“Your behavior is suspicious,” you tell Rythian. He continues not looking at you. You manage your anger, sort of.

“That is also unfortunate.” Honeydew, however, does not manage his anger.

“For fuck’s sake, are you with Sipsco?” Rythian looks at Honeydew.

“No.”

“There’s no need to lie, boy.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Xephos,” Honeydew flicks his wrist impatiently, “Give him a reason to not lie.”

You sock him across the jaw. You bet it hurts, especially with those fresh cuts across his mouth. You hope he bleeds.

“Why is Sipsco marking bodies in the Honeydew Inc. fashion?” Honeydew asks.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.” Your knuckles meet his cheek. His head jerks to the side.

“What is Sipsco doing?”

“I don’t know.” This time you go for the stomach. You feel all his air whuff out of his lungs at once. He pants a bit and then wheezes out a strained, “Christ! I really don’t know!” The tiny spire of rage squats down to a flat stone of confusion. You’re usually pretty good about sniffing out a rat, and this particular vagabond doesn’t really smell like one. You turn to Honeydew, who nods at you.

“Beat him enough to scare him off,” he says, “The drunks in the gutter could tell us more about Sipsco than this kid.”

You toss Rythian on the street when you’re finished and he scrambles away into the night, clutching a purple scarf to his face like it’s a prize he’d won.


	12. Chapter 12

When you finally limp your way back from the Honeydew compound, you find Teep waiting at the entrance to the warehouse, faithful shotgun slung like the arm of a friend over his shoulders. His eyebrows ask _what the fuck happened to you?_ You are picking up on the nuances in his expressions; it unsettles you, how comfortable you are becoming with these people.

            You answer him with, “Their warnings are becoming more violent,” anyway as you drag your unwilling body into Zoey’s workshop.

            She’s tinkering with her goggles when you slump into the doorframe. She fixes the goggles over her face, blinks a couple of times with comically magnified eyes, and says, “You look...” she twitches one lens back into place, “Different.” You snort and pull yourself over to her medics bench.

            “Just fix me, will you?” She skips over to where you slouch into the bench, pushing her goggles up onto her forehead. She preps her kit, cleaning needles and pouring antiseptic onto a rag. You suck air sharply into your mouth through clenched teeth when she presses the rag to your arm.

            “A little warning would be nice,” you grumble.

            “Yeah, well, you just got back from a warning, and look what it did to you,” she counters.

            “Fair enough.” She lifts the rag, looks underneath it, and a sigh brushes from her lungs.

            “So what did you learn this time?” Her voice is weary. You wonder if she’s been getting enough sleep.

            “I hope you don’t mean the ‘lesson’ they taught me,” you half-laugh, half-hiss as she presses the antiseptic to a new wound. She gives you a withering look and jabs you in the upper arm with the rag. You yelp.

            “Ow! Ow, alright, jeez, no more bad jokes, I get it.”

            “So?” She prepares the suture needle. You slide your eyes to the far corner.

            “Honeydew Inc has been having some... issues with Sipsco. So they’ve hired a new maniac.”

            “Any idea who?” The needle dives into your skin. Then again. And again. You tell your face not to wince.

            “Went by Lalna. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting him face-to-face.” Zoey’s suturing stutters over your skin for a moment, but when you look up, her mouth is set and her face is blank, her goggles morphing her hair into funny shapes on her forehead. “In fact, I think you’re sewing up his version of a handshake right now.” You feel a tug at your skin. Zoey has dropped the needle, which is tangling with the arm of the bench as it hangs loose. Her head is between her knees, her palms flat on her thighs. You can piece it together. “You know him, then.” Your eyes return to the corner. The paint is peeling from the top, revealing some dark striated pattern underneath. Is there any part of this place that isn’t falling apart?

            “I didn’t think it would get this bad,” she whispers into her hands, then peeks up at your face, “It’s not like you think.” She rests her elbows on her knees, stares at her hands tangled in front of her. Her body is all sloppy angles; the position makes her look strangely vulnerable.

            “We were childhood friends, neighbors. We both lived in the backwards end of the city, more broken glass than children, you know? All we had was each other to play with.” A fond smile pricks at the edges of her mouth. She untangles the needle, and it begins diving into your skin again. “We used to play pretend doctor with bugs... he was a sweet kid. Always let me dissect first.”

            “What happened?” The fond smile is absorbed into the stiffness of her features. Her face becomes stone.

            “He started practicing on people.”


End file.
